Austria

Abstract

Austria is a parliamentary republic with a federal system similar to Germany’s. From a comparative perspective, the Austrian case is of interest because of the country’s strong anchoring in a bureaucratic Rechtsstaat public administration. Formal rules and regulations as well as bureaucratic hierarchical steering based on the constitutional principle of directives are thus the core governance mechanism. Traditionally, Austrian public administration is characterized by a strong emphasis on processes, rules and directives with legal and procedural correctness prevailing over performance. Administrative work is understood as an application of law in a quasi-judicial mode (Hammerschmid and Meyer 2005a, 2005b). In his international comparison Naschold (1996: 43) called Austria the ‘home of legalistic administration’.